Owen Wilson
Owen Cunningham Wilson is an American actor and screenwriter. He has had a long association with filmmaker Wes Anderson, with whom he shared writing and acting credits for Bottle Rocket and The Royal Tenenbaums, the latter of which earned him a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, his older brother Andrew and younger brother Luke are actors. He is known for his roles in Frat Pack comedies as well as voicing Lightning McQueen in the Cars franchise. Wilson was born in Dallas, the middle of three sons of photographer Laura Wilson and Robert Andrew Wilson, an advertising executive and operator of a public television station, his parents, of Irish descent, were from Massachusetts. Wilson attended New Mexico Military Institute and the University of Texas at Austin, where he pursued a Bachelor of Arts degree in English. After his film debut in Bottle Rocket, Wilson co-wrote with Wes Anderson the script for Anderson's next two directorial films and The Royal Tenenbaums, for which they garnered an Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay.
Wilson landed a role in The Cable Guy, directed by Ben Stiller, an early admirer of Bottle Rocket. After appearing in minor roles in action films like Anaconda and Armageddon and the horror film The Haunting, Wilson appeared in two dramatic roles: a supporting role in Permanent Midnight, which starred Stiller as a drug-addicted TV writer. Wilson starred in the 2000 comedy action film Shanghai Noon alongside Jackie Chan; the film grossed nearly $100 million worldwide. His fame continued to rise after starring alongside Ben Stiller and Will Ferrell in the 2001 film Zoolander. Gene Hackman took notice of Wilson's performance in Shanghai Noon and recommended the actor to co-star in the 2001 action film Behind Enemy Lines. In 2001, Wilson and Anderson collaborated on their third film, The Royal Tenenbaums, a financial and critical success; the film earned the writing team an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay. Wilson returned to the buddy-comedy genre in 2002 with the action comedy I Spy, co-starring Eddie Murphy.
This big-screen remake of the television series did not perform well at the box office. He made a cameo appearance in the Girl Skateboards video Yeah Right! in 2003. He reunited with Chan to make Shanghai Knights, co-starred in the film remake of the 1970s television series Starsky & Hutch. Due to his busy schedule as an actor and an ongoing sinus condition, Wilson was unavailable to collaborate on the script for Wes Anderson's fourth feature film, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou; the 2004 film was co-written by filmmaker Noah Baumbach. However, Wilson did star in the film as Ned Plimpton. In 2004, he and his brother Luke played the Wright brothers in the 2004 film Around the World in 80 Days. Wilson partnered with Vince Vaughn in the 2005 comedy film Wedding Crashers, which grossed over $200 million in the US alone. In 2005, Owen collaborated with his brothers in The Wendell Baker Story, written by Luke and directed by Luke and Andrew. In 2006, Wilson voiced Lightning McQueen in the Disney/Pixar film Cars, starred in You, Me and Dupree with Kate Hudson, appeared with Stiller in Night at the Museum as cowboy Jedediah.
Wilson has starred with Ben Stiller in twelve films, including The Cable Guy, Permanent Midnight, Meet the Parents, The Royal Tenenbaums, Starsky & Hutch, Meet the Fockers, Night at the Museum, the sequels Night at the Museum 2: Battle of the Smithsonian, Little Fockers, Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb and Zoolander 2. Wilson appeared in another Wes Anderson film, The Darjeeling Limited, which screened at the 45th annual New York Film Festival, the Venice Film Festival and opened September 30, 2007, co-starring Jason Schwartzman and Adrien Brody. Wilson next starred in the Judd Apatow comedy, Drillbit Taylor, released in March 2008, he appeared in a film adaptation of John Grogan's best-selling memoir, Marley & Me, co-starring Jennifer Aniston. He starred in The Darjeeling Limited with Adrien Brody and Jason Schwartzman, selected for a DVD and Blu-ray release by The Criterion Collection in October 2010, he provided the voice for the Whackbat Coach Skip in Wes Anderson's Fantastic Mr. Fox.
He starred in the film The Big Year, an adaptation of Mark Obmascik's book The Big Year: A Tale of Man and Fowl Obsession. The film was released in October 2011 by 20th Century Fox, co-starred Jack Black, JoBeth Williams, Steve Martin and Rashida Jones. Wilson is a member of the comedic acting brotherhood colloquially known as the Frat Pack. Wilson made a guest appearance on the NBC comedy Community with fellow Frat Pack member Jack Black, he starred as a nostalgia-seized writer in the romantic comedy Midnight in Paris and directed by Woody Allen. The film was Allen's highest grossing thus far, was well received by critics. In 2011, Wilson returned to voice McQueen in Cars 2. In March 2012, Wilson was signed to star in the John Erick Dowdle thriller The Coup renamed "No Escape", in which he played the role of the father of an American family that moves to Southeast Asia, only to find itself swept up in a wave of rebel violence, overwhelming the city; the film wasn't released until 2015, was Wilson's return to the action genre for the first time since Behind Enemy Lines in 2001.
He voiced turkey Reggie in Reel FX's first animated film, Free Birds. In 2014
Adriatic Sea
The Adriatic Sea is a body of water separating the Italian Peninsula from the Balkan peninsula. The Adriatic is the northernmost arm of the Mediterranean Sea, extending from the Strait of Otranto to the northwest and the Po Valley; the countries with coasts on the Adriatic are Albania and Herzegovina, Italy and Slovenia. The Adriatic contains over 1,300 islands located along the Croatian part of its eastern coast, it is divided into three basins, the northern being the shallowest and the southern being the deepest, with a maximum depth of 1,233 metres. The Otranto Sill, an underwater ridge, is located at the border between the Adriatic and Ionian Seas; the prevailing currents flow counterclockwise from the Strait of Otranto, along the eastern coast and back to the strait along the western coast. Tidal movements in the Adriatic are slight, although larger amplitudes are known to occur occasionally; the Adriatic's salinity is lower than the Mediterranean's because the Adriatic collects a third of the fresh water flowing into the Mediterranean, acting as a dilution basin.
The surface water temperatures range from 30 °C in summer to 12 °C in winter moderating the Adriatic Basin's climate. The Adriatic Sea sits on the Apulian or Adriatic Microplate, which separated from the African Plate in the Mesozoic era; the plate's movement contributed to the formation of the surrounding mountain chains and Apennine tectonic uplift after its collision with the Eurasian plate. In the Late Oligocene, the Apennine Peninsula first formed, separating the Adriatic Basin from the rest of the Mediterranean. All types of sediment are found in the Adriatic, with the bulk of the material transported by the Po and other rivers on the western coast; the western coast is alluvial or terraced, while the eastern coast is indented with pronounced karstification. There are dozens of marine protected areas in the Adriatic, designed to protect the sea's karst habitats and biodiversity; the sea is abundant in flora and fauna—more than 7,000 species are identified as native to the Adriatic, many of them endemic and threatened ones.
The Adriatic's shores are populated by more than 3.5 million people. The earliest settlements on the Adriatic shores were Etruscan and Greek. By the 2nd century BC, the shores were under Rome's control. In the Middle Ages, the Adriatic shores and the sea itself were controlled, to a varying extent, by a series of states—most notably the Byzantine Empire, the Croatian Kingdom, the Republic of Venice, the Habsburg Monarchy and the Ottoman Empire; the Napoleonic Wars resulted in the First French Empire gaining coastal control and the British effort to counter the French in the area securing most of the eastern Adriatic shore and the Po Valley for Austria. Following Italian unification, the Kingdom of Italy started an eastward expansion that lasted until the 20th century. Following World War I and the collapse of Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire, the eastern coast's control passed to Yugoslavia and Albania; the former disintegrated during the 1990s. Italy and Yugoslavia agreed on their maritime boundaries by 1975 and this boundary is recognised by Yugoslavia's successor states, but the maritime boundaries between Slovenian, Bosnian-Herzegovinian, Montenegrin waters are still disputed.
Italy and Albania agreed on their maritime boundary in 1992. Fisheries and tourism are significant sources of income all along the Adriatic coast. Adriatic Croatia's tourism industry has grown faster economically than the rest of the Adriatic Basin's. Maritime transport is a significant branch of the area's economy—there are 19 seaports in the Adriatic that each handle more than a million tonnes of cargo per year; the largest Adriatic seaport by annual cargo turnover is the Port of Trieste, while the Port of Split is the largest Adriatic seaport by passengers served per year. The origins of the name Adriatic are linked to the Etruscan settlement of Adria, which derives its name from the Illyrian adur meaning water or sea. In classical antiquity, the sea was known as Mare Adriaticum or, less as Mare Superum, " upper sea"; the two terms were not synonymous, however. Mare Adriaticum corresponds to the Adriatic Sea's extent, spanning from the Gulf of Venice to the Strait of Otranto; that boundary became more defined by Roman authors – early Greek sources place the boundary between the Adriatic and Ionian seas at various places ranging from adjacent to the Gulf of Venice to the southern tip of the Peloponnese, eastern shores of Sicily and western shores of Crete.
Mare Superum on the other hand encompassed both the modern Adriatic Sea and the sea off the Apennine peninsula's southern coast, as far as the Strait of Sicily. Another name used in the period was Mare Dalmaticum, applied to waters off the coast of Dalmatia or Illyricum; the names for the sea in the languages of the surrounding countries include Albanian: Deti Adriatik. In Croatian and Slovene, the sea is referred to as Jadran; the Adriatic Sea is a semi-enclosed sea, bordered in the southwest by the Apennine or Italian Peninsula, in the northwest by the Italian regions of Veneto and Friuli-Venezia Giulia, in the northeast by Slovenia, Croatia, B
Bosniaks
The Bosniaks are a South Slavic nation and ethnic group inhabiting the area of Bosnia and Herzegovina. A native minority of Bosniaks live in other countries in the Balkans. Bosniaks are characterized by their historic tie to the Bosnian historical region, traditional majority adherence to Islam since the 15th and 16th centuries, common culture and Bosnian language; as of 2017 Bosniaks are recognised as a national minority in Albania. English speakers refer to Bosniaks as Bosnian Muslims or as Bosnians, though the latter term can denote all inhabitants of Bosnia and Herzegovina or apply to citizenship in the country. Over two million Bosniaks live in the Balkans, with an estimated additional million settled and living around the world. Ethnic cleansing and genocide during the Bosnian War have had an effect on the territorial distribution of the population. Due to this, a significant Bosniak diaspora exists in a number of countries, including Austria, Turkey, Sweden and the United States. According to the Bosniak entry in the Oxford English Dictionary, the first preserved use of "Bosniak" in English was by British diplomat and historian Paul Rycaut in 1680 as Bosnack, cognate with post-classical Latin Bosniacus, French Bosniaque or German Bosniak.
The modern spelling is contained in the 1836 Penny Cyclopaedia V. 231/1: "The inhabitants of Bosnia are composed of Bosniaks, a race of Sclavonian origin". In the Slavic languages, -ak is a common suffix appended to words to create a masculine noun, for instance found in the ethnonym of Poles and Slovaks; as such, "Bosniak" is etymologically equivalent to its non-ethnic counterpart "Bosnian": a native of Bosnia. From the perspective of Bosniaks, bosanstvo and bošnjaštvo are and mutually interconnected, as Bosniaks connect their identity with Bosnia and Herzegovina; the earliest attestation to a Bosnian ethnonym emerged with the historical term "Bošnjanin" which denoted the people of the medieval Bosnian kingdom. By the 15th century, the suffix -in had been replaced by -ak to create the current form Bošnjak, first attested in the diplomacy of Bosnian king Tvrtko II who in 1440 dispatched a delegation to the Polish king of Hungary, Władysław Warneńczyk, asserting a common Slavic ancestry and language between the Bosniak and Pole.
The Miroslav Krleža Lexicographical Institute thus defines Bosniak as "the name for the subjects of the Bosnian rulers in the pre-Ottoman era, subjects of the Sultans during the Ottoman era, the current name for the most numerous of the three constituent peoples in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Bosniak, as well as the older term Bošnjanin, is a name defining the inhabitants of the medieval Bosnian state"; the Bosniaks derive their ethnonym from Bosnia, first mentioned in De Administrando Imperio by the Byzantine emperor Constantine VII, in chapter 32, titled "About the Serbs and the lands in which they dwell today", as the horion of "Bosona" in "baptized Serbia". Linguists have traditionally proposed the name to be derived from the eponymous river Bosna. Another basic source associated with the hydronym Bathinus is the Salonitan inscription of the governor of Dalmatia, Publius Cornelius Dolabella, where it is stated that the Bathinum river divides the Breuci from the Osseriates; some scholars connect the Roman road station Ad Basante, first attested in the 5th century Tabula Peutingeriana, to Bosnia.
According to the English medievalist William Miller in the work Essays on the Latin Orient, the Slavic settlers in Bosnia "adapted the Latin designation Basante, to their own idiom by calling the stream Bosna and themselves Bosniaks ". According to philologist Anton Mayer the name Bosna could be derived from Illyrian Bass-an-as which would be a diversion of the Proto-Indo-European root *bhoĝ-, meaning "the running water"; the Croatian linguist, one of the world's foremost onomastics experts, Petar Skok expressed an opinion that the chronological transformation of this hydronym from the Roman times to its final Slavicization occurred in the following order. Other theories involve the rare Latin term Bosina, meaning boundary, possible Slavic and Thracian origins. Theories that advocates the link of the name Bosnia, thus of the Bosniaks with the Early Slavs of northern Europe has been proposed by the 19th century historians Joachim Lelewel and Johann Kaspar Zeuss, who considered the name of Bosnia to be derived from a Slavic ethnonym, mentioned in the Primary Chronicle and by the Geographus Bavarus in his Description of cities and lands north of the Danube.
According to both Lelewel and Zeuss Buzhans settled in Bosnia. The theory of Slavic origin of the name Bosnia and it's possible connection with the Slavic tribe of Buzhans, came to be advocated by the 20th and 21th century Yugoslav and Bosnian historians such as Marko Vego, Muhamed Hadžijahić and Mustafa Imamović. For the duration of Ottoman rule, the word Bosniak came to re
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Bosnia and Herzegovina, sometimes called Bosnia–Herzegovina, known informally as Bosnia, is a country in Southeastern Europe, located within the Balkan Peninsula. Sarajevo is largest city. Bosnia and Herzegovina is an landlocked country – it has a narrow coast at the Adriatic Sea, about 20 kilometres long surrounding the town of Neum, it is bordered by Croatia to the north and south. In the central and eastern interior of the country the geography is mountainous, in the northwest it is moderately hilly, the northeast is predominantly flatland; the inland, Bosnia, is a geographically larger region and has a moderate continental climate, with hot summers and cold and snowy winters. The southern tip, has a Mediterranean climate and plain topography. Bosnia and Herzegovina traces permanent human settlement back to the Neolithic age and after which it was populated by several Illyrian and Celtic civilizations. Culturally and the country has a rich history, having been first settled by the Slavic peoples that populate the area today from the 6th through to the 9th centuries.
In the 12th century the Banate of Bosnia was established, which evolved into the Kingdom of Bosnia in the 14th century, after which it was annexed into the Ottoman Empire, under whose rule it remained from the mid-15th to the late 19th centuries. The Ottomans brought Islam to the region, altered much of the cultural and social outlook of the country; this was followed by annexation into the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, which lasted up until World War I. In the interwar period and Herzegovina was part of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia and after World War II, it was granted full republic status in the newly formed Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Following the dissolution of Yugoslavia, the republic proclaimed independence in 1992, followed by the Bosnian War, lasting until late 1995. Tourism in Bosnia and Herzegovina has grown at double digit rates in recent years. Bosnia and Herzegovina is regionally and internationally renowned for its natural environment and cultural heritage inherited from six historical civilizations, its cuisine, winter sports, its eclectic and unique music and its festivals, some of which are the largest and most prominent of their kind in Southeastern Europe.
The country is home to three main ethnic groups or constituent peoples, as specified in the constitution. Bosniaks are the largest group of the three, with Serbs second, Croats third. A native of Bosnia and Herzegovina, regardless of ethnicity, is identified in English as a Bosnian. Minorities, defined under the constitutional nomenclature "Others", include Jews, Poles and Turks. Bosnia and Herzegovina has a bicameral legislature and a three-member Presidency composed of a member of each major ethnic group. However, the central government's power is limited, as the country is decentralized and comprises two autonomous entities: the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Republika Srpska, with a third unit, the Brčko District, governed under local government; the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina consists of 10 cantons. Bosnia and Herzegovina ranks in terms of human development, has an economy dominated by the industry and agriculture sectors, followed by the tourism and service sectors; the country has a social security and universal healthcare system, primary- and secondary-level education is tuition-free.
It is a member of the UN, OSCE, Council of Europe, PfP, CEFTA, a founding member of the Union for the Mediterranean upon its establishment in July 2008. The country is a potential candidate for membership to the European Union and has been a candidate for NATO membership since April 2010, when it received a Membership Action Plan; the first preserved acknowledged mention of Bosnia is in De Administrando Imperio, a politico-geographical handbook written by the Byzantine emperor Constantine VII in the mid-10th century describing the "small land" of "Bosona". The name is believed to have derived from the hydronym of the river Bosna coursing through the Bosnian heartland. According to philologist Anton Mayer the name Bosna could derive from Illyrian *"Bass-an-as"), which would derive from the Proto-Indo-European root "bos" or "bogh"—meaning "the running water". According to English medievalist William Miller the Slavic settlers in Bosnia "adapted the Latin designation Basante, to their own idiom by calling the stream Bosna and themselves Bosniaks ".
The name Herzegovina originates from Bosnian magnate Stjepan Vukčić Kosača's title, "Herceg of Hum and the Coast". Hum Zahumlje, was an early medieval principality, conquered by the Bosnian Banate in the first half of the 14th century; the region was administered by the Ottomans as the Sanjak of Herzegovina within the Eyalet of Bosnia up until the formation of the short-lived Herzegovina Eyalet in the 1830s, which remerged in the 1850s, after which the entity became known as Bosnia and Herzegovina. On initial proclamation of independence in 1992, the country's official name was the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina but following the 1995 Dayton Agreement and the new constitution that accompanied it the official name was changed to Bosnia and Herzegovina. Bosnia has been inhabited by humans since at least the Neolithic age; the earliest Neolithic population became known in the Antiquity as the Illyrians. Celtic migrations in the 4th century BC were notable. Concrete historical e
War film
War film is a film genre concerned with warfare about naval, air, or land battles, with combat scenes central to the drama. It has been associated with the 20th century; the fateful nature of battle scenes means that war films end with them. Themes explored include combat and escape, camaraderie between soldiers, the futility and inhumanity of battle, the effects of war on society, the moral and human issues raised by war. War films are categorized by their milieu, such as the Korean War; the stories told may be historical drama, or biographical. Critics have noted similarities between the war film. Nations such as China, Indonesia and Russia have their own traditions of war film, centred on their own revolutionary wars but taking varied forms, from action and historical drama to wartime romance. Subgenres, not distinct, include anti-war, animated and documentary. There are subgenres of the war film in specific theatres such as the western desert, the Pacific in the Second World War, or Vietnam.
The war film genre is not tightly defined: the American Film Institute, for example, speaks of "films to grapple with the Great War" without attempting to classify these. However, some directors and critics have offered at least tentative definitions; the director Sam Fuller defined the genre by saying that "a war film’s objective, no matter how personal or emotional, is to make a viewer feel war." John Belton identified four narrative elements of the war film within the context of Hollywood production: a) the suspension of civilian morality during times of war, b) primacy of collective goals over individual motivations, c) rivalry between men in predominantly male groups as well as marginalization and objectification of women, d) depiction of the reintegration of veterans. The film critic Stephen Neale suggests that the genre is for the most part well defined and uncontentious, since war films are those about war being waged in the 20th century, with combat scenes central to the drama. However, Neale notes, films set in the American Civil War or the American Indian Wars of the 19th century were called war films in the time before the First World War.
The critic Julian Smith argues, on the contrary, that the war film lacks the formal boundaries of a genre like the Western, but that in practice, "successful and influential" war films are about modern wars, in particular World War II, with the combination of mobile forces and mass killing. The film scholar Kathryn Kane points out some similarities between the war film genre and the Western. Both genres use opposing concepts like war and peace and savagery. War films frame World War II as a conflict between "good" and "evil" as represented by the Allied forces and Nazi Germany whereas the Western portrays the conflict between civilized settlers and the savage indigenous peoples. James Clarke notes the similarity between a Western like Sam Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch and "war-movie escapades" like The Dirty Dozen. Film historian Jeanine Basinger states that she began with a preconception of what the war film genre would be, namely that What I knew in advance was what every member of our culture would know about World War II combat films—that they contained a hero, a group of mixed types, a military objective of some sort.
They take place in the actual combat zones of World War II, against the established enemies, on the ground, the sea, or in the air. They contain many repeated events, such as mail call, all presented visually with appropriate uniforms and iconography of battle. Further, Basinger considers Bataan to provide a definition-by-example of "the World War II combat film", in which a diverse and unsuited group of "hastily assembled volunteers" hold off a much larger group of the enemy through their "bravery and tenacity", she argues. Since she notes that there were in fact only five true combat films made during the Second World War, in her view these few films, central to the genre, are outweighed by the many other films that lie on the margins of being war films. However, other critics such as Russell Earl Shain propose a far broader definition of war film, to include films that deal "with the roles of civilians, espionage agents, soldiers in any of the aspects of war" Neale points out that genres overlap, with combat scenes for different purposes in other types of film, suggests that war films are characterised by combat which "determines the fate of the principal characters".
This in turn pushes combat scenes to the climactic ends of war films. Not all critics agree, that war films must be about 20th-century wars. James Clarke includes Edward Zwick's Oscar-winning Glory among the war films he discusses in detail; the military historian Antony Beevor "despair" at how film-makers from America and Britain "play fast and loose with the facts", yet imply that "their version is as good as the truth." For example, he calls the 2000 American film U-571 a "shameless deception" for pretending that a US warship had helped to win the Battle of the Atlantic—seven months before America entered the war. He is critical of Christopher Nolan's 2017 film Dunkirk with its unhistorically empty beaches, low-level air combat over the sea, res
Slovakia
Slovakia the Slovak Republic, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east, Hungary to the south, Austria to the west, the Czech Republic to the northwest. Slovakia's territory spans about 49,000 square kilometres and is mountainous; the population is over 5.4 million and consists of Slovaks. The capital and largest city is Bratislava, the second largest city is Košice; the official language is Slovak. The Slavs arrived in the territory of present-day Slovakia in the 6th centuries. In the 7th century, they played a significant role in the creation of Samo's Empire and in the 9th century established the Principality of Nitra, conquered by the Principality of Moravia to establish Great Moravia. In the 10th century, after the dissolution of Great Moravia, the territory was integrated into the Principality of Hungary, which would become the Kingdom of Hungary in 1000. In 1241 and 1242, much of the territory was destroyed by the Mongols during their invasion of Central and Eastern Europe.
The area was recovered thanks to Béla IV of Hungary who settled Germans which became an important ethnic group in the area in what are today parts of central and eastern Slovakia. After World War I and the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Czechoslovak National Council established Czechoslovakia. A separate Slovak Republic existed during World War II as a totalitarian, clero-fascist one-party client state of Nazi Germany. At the end of World War II, Czechoslovakia was re-established as an independent country. A coup in 1948 ushered in a totalitarian one-party state under the Communist regime during whose rule the country existed as a satellite of the Soviet Union. Attempts for liberalization of communism in Czechoslovakia culminated in the Prague Spring, crushed by the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in August 1968. In 1989, the Velvet Revolution ended the Communist rule in Czechoslovakia peacefully. Slovakia became an independent state on 1 January 1993 after the peaceful dissolution of Czechoslovakia, sometimes known as the Velvet Divorce.
Slovakia is a developed country, with a high-income advanced economy and a high Human Development Index, a high standard of living and performs favourably in measurements of civil liberties, press freedom, internet freedom, democratic governance and peacefulness. The country maintains a combination of market economy with a comprehensive social security system. Citizens of Slovakia are provided with universal health care, free education and one of the longest paid parental leave in the OECD; the country joined the European Union on 1 May 2004 and joined the Eurozone on 1 January 2009. Slovakia is a member of the Schengen Area, NATO, the United Nations, the OECD, the WTO, CERN, the OSCE, the Council of Europe and the Visegrád Group. Although regional income inequality is high, 90% of citizens own their homes. In 2018, Slovak citizens had visa-free or visa-on-arrival access to 179 countries and territories, ranking the Slovak passport 10th in the world; as part of Eurozone, Slovak legal tender is the world's 2nd-most-traded currency.
Slovakia is the world's largest per-capita car producer with a total of 1,040,000 cars manufactured in the country in 2016 alone and the 7th largest car producer in the European Union. The car industry represents 43% of Slovakia's industrial output, a quarter of its exports; the first written mention of name Slovakia is in 1586. It derives from the Czech word Slováky; the native name Slovensko derives from an older name of Slovaks Sloven what may indicate its origin before the 15th century. The original meaning was geographic, since Slovakia was a part of the multiethnic Kingdom of Hungary and did not form a separate administrative unit in this period. Radiocarbon dating puts the oldest surviving archaeological artefacts from Slovakia – found near Nové Mesto nad Váhom – at 270,000 BCE, in the Early Paleolithic era; these ancient tools, made by the Clactonian technique, bear witness to the ancient habitation of Slovakia. Other stone tools from the Middle Paleolithic era come from the Prévôt cave in Bojnice and from other nearby sites.
The most important discovery from that era is a Neanderthal cranium, discovered near Gánovce, a village in northern Slovakia. Archaeologists have found prehistoric human skeletons in the region, as well as numerous objects and vestiges of the Gravettian culture, principally in the river valleys of Nitra, Ipeľ, Váh and as far as the city of Žilina, near the foot of the Vihorlat and Tribeč mountains, as well as in the Myjava Mountains; the most well-known finds include the oldest female statue made of mammoth-bone, the famous Venus of Moravany. The statue was found in the 1940s in Moravany nad Váhom near Piešťany. Numerous necklaces made of shells from Cypraca thermophile gastropods of the Tertiary period have come from the sites of Zákovská, Podkovice and Radošina; these findings provide the most ancient evidence of commercial exchanges carried out between the Mediterranean and central Europe. The Bronze Age in the geographical territory of modern-day Slovakia went through three stages of development, stretching from 2000 to 800 BCE.
Major cultural and political development can be attributed to the significant growth in production of copper in central Slovakia and northwe
USS Constellation (CV-64)
USS Constellation, a Kitty Hawk-class supercarrier, was the third ship of the United States Navy to be named in honor of the "new constellation of stars" on the flag of the United States. One of the fastest ships in the Navy, as proven by her victory during a battlegroup race held in 1985, she was nicknamed "Connie" by her crew and as "America's Flagship"; the contract to build Constellation was awarded to the New York Naval Shipyard Brooklyn, New York, on 1 July 1956, her keel was laid down 14 September 1957 at the New York Navy Yard. She was launched 8 October 1960, sponsored by Mary Herter. Constellation was delivered to the Navy 1 October 1961, commissioned on 27 October 1961, with Captain T. J. Walker in command. At that time, she had cost about US$264.5 million. Constellation was the last U. S. aircraft carrier to be built at a yard other than Newport News Drydock Company. Constellation was scrapped at Brownsville, Texas, in 2015–2017; the keel of the Constellation was laid at New York Naval Shipyard in 1957.
USS Constellation was damaged by fire while under construction on 19 December 1960. The carrier was in the final stages of construction at the Brooklyn Navy Yard in Brooklyn, New York when the fire began; the fire broke out when a forklift operating on the hangar deck accidentally pushed its cargo into a steel plate knocking it over. The plate broke off the plug of a 500 US gallons tank of diesel fuel which spilled from the container reaching the lower levels of the ship; the fuel was ignited by a cutting torch of a fitter, moved to a wooden scaffolding. The flames spread filling the passageways of the ship with smoke. A Navy commander commented on the nature of the ships design at an inquiry, "Ships of this class are the most complex structures designed by man."It took 17 hours for firefighters to extinguish the fire, some of whom had been "driven to the raw edge of exhaustion" after being called into service in the Park Slope air accident. The firefighters saved hundreds of lives without losing any of their own, however fifty shipyard workers perished.
The extensive damage cost 75 million dollars to repair, delayed the commissioning date by seven months, leading to a rumor that the ship that had burned in New York was Kitty Hawk and the fire caused the Navy to change the names and hull number designations between the two sister ships that were being built in separate shipyards in separate states. An abstract of a New York Times article from the day after the fire, 20 December 1960, refers to the ship as USS Constellation. Constellation was launched 8 October 1960, she was delivered to the Navy 1 October 1961, she was commissioned on 27 October 1961, with Captain T. J. Walker in command. Another fire occurred on the Constellation on 7 November 1961, while she was being tested at sea, killing four and injuring nine others. Following fitting out and acceptance trials, Constellation departed her home port of Norfolk, Virginia, on 7 February 1962 for initial air operations off the Virginia Capes, she conducted her first catapult launch and arrested landing the same day with Commander George C.
Watkins, air group 13 commander, at the controls of an A4D-2 Skyhawk of Attack Squadron 34. After a month of operating locally, Connie conducted a two-month shakedown cruise in the Caribbean Sea. In summer 1962, Constellation was transferred to the U. S. Pacific Fleet and CVG-13 was disestablished. For the two-month trip around Cape Horn to her new home port of San Diego, Connie embarked elements of CVG-5 and departed Mayport, Florida, on 25 July. In November Constellation, with CVG-14 on board, commenced workup exercises for her upcoming maiden deployment to the western Pacific as a component of the U. S. Seventh Fleet; the uneventful cruise took place from February to September 1963. Constellation's second deployment began on 5 May 1964, she relieved Kitty Hawk on station in the Gulf of Tonkin off Vietnam on 8 June, embarked Carrier Air Wing 14 and flew armed photo reconnaissance missions over Laos until 13 July. Following an upkeep period at Subic Bay, Constellation reached Hong Kong for a port visit on 27 July, but within a few days was called back into action.
As a result of orders received during the first day of the Gulf of Tonkin Incident, Constellation got underway and headed toward the Gulf of Tonkin. On 4 August, Constellation launched F-4B Phantom IIs to join aircraft from Ticonderoga in providing air cover over the destroyers which were alleged by the Johnson administration to have been attacked by North Vietnamese torpedo boats. On 5 August both carriers launched Operation Pierce Arrow, a series of air strikes on a North Vietnamese oil facility and naval vessels. CVW-14 lost two aircraft, an A-1 Skyraider, piloted by Lieutenant Richard C. Sather, killed in action, an A-4 Skyhawk flown by Lieutenant Everett Alvarez, Jr. who became one of the United States' first prisoners of war of the Vietnam War. Operations returned to a more normal cycle for the remainder of the deployment, Constellation returned to San Diego on 1 February 1965, ending a nearly nine-month cruise. Connie and CVW-14 were awarded a Navy Unit Commendation for the early August operations.
During the deployment, Constellation appears to have been under the direction of Commander Carrier Division 9. A first shipyard period for Constellation followed; the carrier, with CVW-15 on board, was underway for operations off Vi
